by J. S. Mahon
The war was over before they could send us into action, but I did almost two years of military service, as they called it then, mainly in Germany. I saw things there, like cruelty, prostitution and starving people that shocked me and made me a lot more pensive than I’d been before and more appreciative of the safe, quiet life that I soon had after I met your grandma in ‘47. After that it was plain sailing and to be honest I don’t know where the years went between us getting married in ‘49 and this business I’m telling you about starting up. Your mother was born in ‘56 and by then I was already working at the factory where I stayed for over thirty years until I retired.
Not what you’d call an exciting life, but the point I want to make is that I’d never felt vulnerable until the blackmail, and being out of practice might explain why I reacted the way I did when Dennis threatened to upset my peaceful life. That line of Macmillan’s about us never having had it so good had a bit of truth to it because for hard-working people things were on the up and up from the ‘50s onwards and we were always getting new things. First there was the telly, then a car, as well as electrical goods and whatnot, and it seemed enough then just to work and keep on getting a better life for ourselves. I know things are harder these days, but back then you’d work for one thing, get it, and then carry on working for the next. After I did what I’ll finally get round to telling you about I never saw things so simply again and, as you know, I often preferred to sit thinking rather than talk, which was probably what made me seem so dull to the rest of the family.
I’d better get back to my story before you get bored of my philosophising. After that first walk I told Barbara that I’d enjoyed it so much that I was going to do more hiking and get myself fit. As my plans took shape in my mind I realised that it would be a mistake to change my weekend activities completely, so from the next weekend onwards I fished on one day and walked on the other, usually alternating the days that I did each thing. I went back to Parton Hill a couple of times that summer, but I did most of my walking on the moors up behind Wornton village and it was one Saturday in early August when I finally saw what I’d been looking for, Dennis’s car.
Now the last thing that I wanted was to bump into him up in the hills, although I knew that it was something that might happen, but seeing his car parked up just off the square gave me such a kick that I didn’t mind missing my walk for once. After wandering around in the churchyard for a bit, hoping to find out at what time he finished his run, I realised that I couldn’t hang around all morning, so I drove back towards town and had a stroll around Thrumley Park instead. As the sun was out I had a sit down on a bench there and studied my map. The moors beyond Wornton went on for miles before you reached the next town, but there weren’t too many tracks and paths on the map. Assuming that he stuck to the paths most of the time, because the moorland was probably too rough and boggy for running over, I saw that there were a couple of logical routes that he could take to and from the village. It didn’t really matter if he ran six miles or sixteen because he would have to get back to the village eventually and I decided that I would break my habit on the following day and return to Wornton.
I drove into the village just before nine and seeing that his car wasn’t in the square I turned round and parked up on the street coming into the village between two other cars. I had a red Cortina in those days, which was quite a common car, so I wasn’t too worried about him spotting it. I’d bought a newspaper before leaving town so I sat on a bench on a little grassy area set back from the street and kept an eye on the few cars that drove into the village. By about a quarter past ten I’d read all about the dockers’ strike and The Troubles (in Northern Ireland) and it looked like he wasn’t coming, so I put my new boots on, grabbed my knapsack with my butties and a bottle of water, and set off on my walk.
I was pleased he hadn’t turned up because it gave me the chance to do a long walk along his most likely route and I knew that if I saw him once up on the tops he might put it down to coincidence, but if he saw me twice he’d know that I was up to something and would go somewhere else to do his running. He hadn’t seen me at all yet and I wanted to make the most of my opportunity to recce the route because it wasn’t advisable to be seen up there any more than was strictly necessary. The lane I left the village on soon turned into a stony old track which headed straight up the hillside. There was a farm half way up it, but there was nobody about and after about half an hour I crested the rise and surveyed the hills rolling away into the distance.
I couldn’t see a soul and you have to remember that only a few hikers, birdwatchers and crackpot runners went up the fells at the weekends then, not like today when a lot more people have taken to walking and cycling about everywhere. The old track continued right up the hill, becoming increasingly rocky, and there was a fine view from the top of the moors stretching away to the east. I was fairly sure that he would begin or end his runs on that track and I was just as sure that there was no suitable spot on that part of the route to ambush a much nimbler man than myself, and even if there had been, I could hardly lug his body down past the farm and into the village.
As I sat eating a butty I reasoned that he would probably extend his runs further to the east, but the idea of confronting him right out in the wilds and just dumping his body in a bog never crossed my mind. I’d read enough crime stories to realise how advisable it was to make the corpse disappear and that if it ever were to be found, it should be somewhere well away from the place where the murderer might have been seen. If Dennis ever did disappear while out running on these hills and some local had been observant enough to have noticed a big chap with a red Cortina knocking about the village occasionally, it wouldn’t be on the weekend it happened and there’d be no corpse anyway.
This was because I’d pinned my hopes on the other logical route to or from the village, which was a narrow path that I made my way down after I’d finished eating. Although it was marked on the map, it wasn’t really much of a path, as it probably didn’t get much use. I walked along it about five years’ ago, just to see it one more time, and saw that it had been much improved and would no longer have served my purpose. Back then it was little more than a rut through the moorland which followed the contour of the hillside for a while, before heading down above a narrow stream in a fairly steep gully. As I made my way down I saw a few promising places where it would have been possible to push someone off it and down into the stream, but they’d see you coming and if Dennis came across me in that out of the way place he’d be sure to turn round and scarper before he got anywhere near me.
I plodded on down the path and was beginning to think that I was out of luck when I rounded a tight bend and stopped in my tracks. It was the perfect spot, especially if you knew which way your victim was heading. It was about fifteen very steep yards down to the stream, alongside which there was a lot of long grass and two small bushes directly below me on the other side of the stream. After making sure there was nobody around I climbed carefully down and inspected the area. I leapt over the stream, took off my rucksack and spread the contents out behind the bushes, before scrambling back up to the path. I walked a hundred yards up it, before turning and walking back down it with my eyes on the bushes. Nothing. I did the same from the other direction and could just make out one corner of my newspaper, but only because I was staring straight at it. Those little bushes could hide a body: mine while I was waiting for him and his once I’d finished him off.
After walking a good quarter mile up the path to make absolutely sure there was nobody around, I returned to the bend above the bushes and imagined him coming from either direction. I saw a flaw in my plan. While it was undoubtedly a good place to lie in wait for him if I was certain that he was climbing or descending the path, it would be difficult to see him coming without being seen myself. Furthermore, if I grabbed him as he rounded the bend and tried to push him into the gully, he might cling to me and pull me down with him. A third defect in the strategy was that a feath
erweight like Dennis might roll down the hill without sustaining any injures to speak of and spring straight to his feet and flee. Then where would I be? Accused of assault or even attempted murder without having had the chance to harm a hair on his head. Not that I wanted to hurt him or make him suffer, no, I had no desire to do that. I just wanted to remove him from my life.
I took another look up and down the path before edging my way back down to the bushes. I lay down behind them and looked up at the path. That bend was the spot all right, and if I could make him fall there and roll down the gully I’d be able to await him with open arms, and a big rock. A gun with a silencer sprang to mind, but if I’d had one of those I’d have had no need to be lying down beside a stream in the middle of nowhere wracking my brains. I scratched my head and looked at the stream, almost wishing that I’d gone fishing instead.
Then I had my idea; fishing line! Yes, if I could somehow rig up a tripwire right on the bend it would do the work for me. I clambered back up the slope and examined the area around the bend in the path, but there was no convenient tree stump to aid me. It would have to be a large rock, so I went down to the stream once more and found one a little bigger and flatter than a loaf of bread and carried it over to the slope. I sweated buckets heaving the damn thing up to the path, before dropping it right on the inside curve of the path.
I surveyed the new feature from a few yards away and it stuck out like a sore thumb, so I scooped up some fine earth from the path and rubbed it all over the rock, before walking a short way up the path and sitting down to eat my last sandwich and drink some water. When I sauntered back down trying to see things with fresh eyes the rock didn’t look quite so odd and would probably make the passerby step slightly closer to the edge. My idea was to tie a length of sea-fishing line around the rock, conceal it as best I could with the earth of the path and trail it down to the bushes. From there I would yank it tight when Dennis approached and with a bit of luck he’d trip and fly straight off the path into the gully. I say with a bit of luck, but I was fairly sure that the bend was tight enough to send him over the edge, even if he was going uphill at the time.
I crouched down and visualised the angle of the line, realising that if his last footfall on reaching it was on the outer side of the path he’d be likely to step on the line rather than trip over it and his other foot might well clear it. Back down to the stream I went once more and selected a stone about the size of a brick with some handy ruts on one side. Once I’d covered it in dust, I placed it on the outer edge of the path, before moving a few yards away, which is when I heard voices coming from further down the hillside.
It was too late to scramble down to my hiding place, so I set off rapidly up the path, hoping to get back to the track before they saw me. This took me about twenty minutes of fast walking and once there I sat down on a rock a few yards off the track and took out my water bottle and empty butty box. When the middle-aged couple in hiking gear reached me I snapped the box shut as if I’d just finished my dinner and said hello to them. After we’d all agreed that it was a nice day, they headed down the track towards the village and I wished I hadn’t given up smoking, as it would have given me an excuse to stay put for a while longer, especially if they’d just been wondering who the hell had put two rocks on the path.
It was a good test, anyway, and when I approached the bend in the path I was pleased on two counts: that the rocks were still where I’d left them and that they no longer looked like I’d just put them there. There were plenty more stones and rocks along the length of the path and two new ones didn’t make much difference. Having spent quite enough time trudging up and down that gully, I walked straight past and timed my walk down to the lane where the path came out. It took me about a quarter of an hour, a little under a mile, I guessed, but I’d have to allow at least double that in the dark with a dead Dennis over my shoulder.
Before heading back along the lane towards the village I first went the other way and some fifty yards further on there was a gate into a field alongside which I’d be able to do a three point turn and park my car. I’d be parking there just the once, for less than an hour, and as the lane only led to a farm the risk of being spotted was slim, but a risk all the same. I was also counting on Dennis not being missed that same day, living alone as he did, and that was another risk I’d have to take.
I decided that when I started lying in wait for him behind the bushes, I’d park on a busy road that I knew well and which lay about a mile over the fields towards the town. There were terraced houses on one side of that road and it was usually lined with parked cars, so mine wouldn’t be conspicuous. Parking there and walking along the path through the fields every weekend was another minor risk, though, and I realised that so many small risks added up to a pretty hefty one before I’d even disposed of the body and that I’d do well to think about the consequences of being caught, the main one being about fifteen years behind bars, by the end of which I’d be an old man and almost certainly a single one.
It might seem that I’ve given you an unnecessarily detailed account of my scheming that day, but I’ve done so for a reason. After coming across the perfect spot and coming up with what I thought was a near-perfect plan, it made the execution of it seem almost inevitable. All the next week I kept thinking about it, but told myself I should just leave it at that, a clever plan, and think of some other way to thwart my blackmailer. The trouble was that I visualised the murder so many times that it almost seemed predestined that I’d see it through. Perhaps I should have written this then, before I did it, and got it out of my system that way, but it never crossed my mind at the time.
4
The following Saturday I went fishing and when I tell you where I went you’ll realise that despite trying to convince myself to the contrary, my plan was still very much alive in my mind. I drove to the lodge that I mentioned earlier and which proved to be exactly seventeen miles from my house. I set off early and when I arrived there were already a dozen or so anglers spaced out around the lodge, which measured about a hundred yards by fifty or sixty. I had a chat with one young chap who told me that as I didn’t have a permit I’d better not risk fishing because the bailiff normally appeared about mid-morning and looked out for any new faces.
Looking suitably disappointed, I strolled on around the path and passed the time of day with a couple of other blokes. I asked one old-timer if anyone did any night fishing there and he said that a few of the keener lads did during the summer months, especially on Saturday nights. Not wanting to appear too inquisitive, I carried on round and noticed that the roughly oval lodge was narrower at the end furthest from the road. I was carrying nothing at the time, but in my mind’s eye I was imagining how useful the fifty yard coil of climbing rope that I planned to buy would be. While pretending to observe each angler’s strategies, I was really fixing in my mind the best spot to place Dennis’s tied body before skirting the lodge and pulling him into and across it until he lay under what I hoped would be at least fifteen feet of water.
Satisfied with my research, I drove to the town of Burnthorpe, about a dozen miles west of there, and set out to find a good sports shop. I bought a set of dumbbells with enough weights to test a man of my size, before seeking out the specialist climbing shop that the owner had directed me to. Feeling quite a few quid poorer but well-provisioned, I drove back towards town and had a walk up Spurton Hill to kill some time. The items I had bought would be staying in the boot of my car until required and both could be justified if discovered; the weights for myself and the rope in the mistaken belief that it would be strong enough to tow a car. I’d already thrown the receipts away.
With all my plans made, I realised that the evenings were still too light for the disposal of the body in the timeframe that I envisaged and that I ought to wait at least a month before beginning to lie in wait for him. This also gave me plenty of time for reflection and when I met Dennis on the first Tuesday in September to pay him his third instalment I had spe
nt three weekends away from the hills, having resumed my fishing instead, and had decided to give him one last chance. When I entered the pub on the other side of town he was already sitting at a table with his pint, looking like the social misfit that he was. I was glad to see that he was also looking lean and fit, because that meant that he was probably running just as often as ever. I greeted him like a long lost friend, bought a pint, and asked him if he had been doing many races.
“Hardly any. It costs money to get to them, you see, and I still haven’t found a job,” he said grimly.
“I can try to get you back on at our place when things pick up, if you like,” I said.
“Ha, I don’t think so. I can’t stay long tonight,” he said, waiting for me to produce the envelope. I sipped my pint and looked at him benevolently.
“I’ve been having a think, Dennis, and I’ve decided that this can’t go on.” I slid the envelope under his hand before patting it. “I’m prepared to give you £140 next month, which’ll make two hundred in total, and that’s your lot.”
“Nothing doing, Jack.”
“Right, well you go and tell Barbara about Linda then. I’ll tell the police about the three times you’ve blackmailed me so far and the grand that you plan to get out of me and we’ll see who fares the worst.” I sat back in my chair, folded my arms, and looked at him coolly. He kept his calm, I’ll say that for him, and took a long drink of beer.